


hand in hand

by Anonymous



Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: Canon Backstory, Character Study, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Kaoru and Yahiko, meeting in another world. (Archive 2015)
Relationships: Kamiya Kaoru & Myoujin Yahiko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Anonymous Fics





	hand in hand

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things I loved most about the movies was the idea of Yahiko and Kaoru finding each other on their own, and the very different tone in their relationship that would have necessarily followed. This doesn't explore that dynamic as much as it deserves, but I wanted to touch on it.

She finds him in the rain, shivering and filthy.

The umbrella she clutches in her fingers has a bumpy handle that presses bruisingly into her palm. She stands still, rain dripping off its rim and splashing her toes from the deep puddles already established.

The boy looks up at her, blinded by water, sullen and starving. His cheekbones push like macabre thumbs from the inside of his cheeks. Kaoru stands, lonely and cold and tired, an orphan already. She has and will aim for grand things in her life, quiet glories of ideal and love, but here and now she thinks only of the hot tea at home, and how little it costs her to make one offer.

He won't follow her at first. That's what she'll remember; not deciding to make the offer, not stepping forward. She remembers only that they ended up yelling at each other, her umbrella discarded in the mud, water dripping from her hair to her shoulders and neck. She remembers that Yahiko glared, sullen and half-dead from hunger, and in the end their mutual mutinous silence had broken his mistrust.

He'd followed her home abreast, four paces and stiff silence between them. And that was how their family bloomed; in anger, in hunger, and in equal agreement.

He drinks her tea and eats her food and sleeps, small and rumpled, in a futon she spreads for him. She waylays him in the morning, rising before him with ease. He is a child, and probably has not slept well in a long time.

She knows he's going to run. The same instinct is in her, strange in her own household. She is bound to the dojo by blood and memory, and she walks and tends its empty halls as if remorselessly assessing her own hollow heart. Before he can flee she finds him.

"Here," she says, "I've made breakfast."

He is at first incredulous and then disdainful of her offers. He eyes her warily and then graduates to hoarsely eager small-voiced boasts and criticisms. He cooks for her, and mangles the rice about half as badly.

When they're eating breakfast on the porch, silently, Yahiko begins to cry. Kaoru prods their unenthusiastic food with her chopsticks, staring at the muddy ground while the wind sighs and the trees slowly shake loose their weight of rainwater.

He does so defiantly, quietly, only breaking for the occasional harsh sniffle of snot. Kaoru feels her own warm tears drip onto her knuckles, allowing herself the painful relief in the security of morning, and breakfast, and mutual loneliness.

"This is a dojo," Yahiko says finally.

Kaoru tips her chin. "Yes," she says, regarding the clearing sky. "I have students coming this morning."

Yahiko slurps his tea with an almost defensive crudity. "Thank you for breakfast," he says curtly. "I've finished."

"You're welcome to stay and watch the lesson." She watches the gate, knowing her show of indifference is inept but helpless to do better to put him at ease.

Quiet radiates from him, but it's a different sort of stillness. When she glances sideways she sees his head ducked, hair spiky with sweat and grime and ruffled by the passage of his hand. She'll likely need to launder the bedding before he sleeps again.

If he remains.

"Yeah," Yahiko says very softly. "Yeah, okay. Sure. Whatever. For a while."

There's no bite to his voice. He's taken the hand she extended.

Kaoru lowers her eyes and smiles at him. He looks away instead of smiling back, but the corners of his mouth have softened. His small, stubborn chin wavers, then relaxes as the clench of his jaw eases.

The morning blooms.


End file.
